Asking for comments/critiques of these 2 portrait shots

This is my good friend's daughter, who graciously agree to let me get in some much needed practice. Shot these in a local park's gazebo. Thoughts on improving them? Shot with D2X/28-70/SB800 in iTTL-BL.

Great images of a beautiful woman, Steve. Looks like you used the ambient light well. Not sure if it's my monitor, but the sharpness of her face in image #1 looks a bit soft, but everything else around it looks fine...probably just an illusion. She has a a beautiful smile as depicted in image #2. I like the compostion and crop on both images. Did you shoot any images of her face close-up? Great portraiture job, Steve.

great shots of a beautiful model. Couple of things to consider mostly in the second shot. The angel that you are at and the Angel of her head you get a clear view up her nose, and with her leg position a pretty good view up her dress. ALWAYS watch for the dress creeping up in places that it shouldn't.

Great images of a beautiful woman, Steve. Looks like you used the ambient light well. Not sure if it's my monitor, but the sharpness of her face in image #1 looks a bit soft, but everything else around it looks fine...probably just an illusion. She has a a beautiful smile as depicted in image #2. I like the compostion and crop on both images. Did you shoot any images of her face close-up? Great portraiture job, Steve.

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I think I'm having issues with the outboard focus reticles on my D2X, since all the images I took in portrait mode used the outer reticle and are showing softness from either back or front focusing. Also, I probably forgot to do a final sharpening on this one after pretty severely downsizing it for web. Print looks great. It was actually one of the few shots I did in landscape mode, most likely using the center reticle.

The lighting looks a bit flatter than I am used to with your stuff Steve. She looks good, but I'll bet if you work with her more, she'll look great!

I was gonna make a remark that too bad her dad's your friend, but then decided that would be in bad taste.

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but flat she sure isn't! :wink: I think using the Sb800 in iTTL-BL made it the main source of light, and being onboard the cam, albiet above it with an RRS PP rig, makes for flat lighting. Too bad she doesn't know a thing about posing for the cam, and I'm pretty inexperienced too. We did work off a posing contact sheet I printed up as guidlines for her poses, but she's a beauty pageant queen, not a photography model. And fwiw, Chris, I've known this girl since she was 2, but that doesn't make blind to her beauty. :shock: She is definitely well built! :lol: She's on the diving team in college.

great shots of a beautiful model. Couple of things to consider mostly in the second shot. The angel that you are at and the Angel of her head you get a clear view up her nose, and with her leg position a pretty good view up her dress. ALWAYS watch for the dress creeping up in places that it shouldn't.

Dan

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I see what you mean about the up the nose angle, and you're right about that dress creeping up too far in that 2nd shot. It's a bit too revealing, isn't it? I'd better go back and see if there's another similar shot we could use.

Wow.. She is very cute, and I do think you did a pretty good job photographing her.
As Dan mentioned, the dress is revealing a little to much of her leg, but who's complaining..
I hope you get to photograph her some more.. maybe in her bikini next time

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